Bosnia Federation President Mulls Fresh Elections

As the crisis in Bosnia’s Federation entity continues, its president, Zivko Budimir, has suggested new elections and the appointment of an entirely new government.Zivko Budimir said the best solution for the political crisis in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one of two autonomous entities in the country, would be early elections.

The ethnic Croat president of the entity is resisting pressure from the majority in the entity assembly to dismiss half the government’s ministers.

On January 28, he told a TV interview that the crisis would be best resolved by calling new elections and a new government. Another route to the same outcome would be a parliamentary vote of non-confidence in the existing government, he added.

The latest crisis in the entity government started last summer, after the state-level coalition of the Party of Democratic Action, SDA, and the Social Democratic Party, SDP, fell apart. This then had a knock-on effect on the coalition holding office in the mainly Bosniak [Muslim] and Croat entity.

The parliamentary majority in the Federation, which had comprised the SDA and the SDP, changed, with the SDP finding a new coalition partner in another Bosniak [Muslim] party, the Alliance for a Better Future, SBB.

The SDP, the SBB, along with Bosnia’s two main Croatian parties, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, and its sister party, HDZ 1990, have since then tried to dismiss the eight ministers from the government who belong to the SDA and some smaller Croat parties.

The Federation constitution gives the President the power to axe the ministers in question, but Budimir has refused to act, as belongs to the Croatian Party of Rights, HSP, one of the parties facing dismissal from the government.